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Evolution of the PJ Setlist
SneedyBaumbach
Posts: 58
First off, I'm a little confused, did the band play acoustic "Red Mosquito" tonight at the second Bridge School show?
And as others were pointing out, I also lament the fact that the band doesn't play "All Those Yesterdays" more often... it's a damned fine song. The acoustic version from Mansfield III in 2003 was masterful, not that I have anything to compare it to; it's the only time the band's played it in a SET in the past eight years. It's 2006, and the song should be opening shows or closing out encores, not being tucked away in soundchecks.
But as for odds, seriously, what are my chances of hearing "Sometimes" before the year is out? 1/80? It seems they're more apt to play the song when they re-visit certain cities (2x times in Dallas, 2x in Sydney, 3x in London, 2x in Quebec and 5x in North Carolina-- what's up with NC and that song?). I've always wondered why certain songs in the PJ catalogue are repeatedly played in certain locations and not others.
I'm still holding out hope they'll play the rest of the song before New Year's Eve this year, especially since Australia's next and of any region in the world outside of North Carolina, it'd be the place to see it emerge again (7 times in OZ/NZ). Maybe Perth or Adelaide will be my save my ass this year. I figure they'll open with "Oceans" in a couple of shows or possibly try "Big Wave". Hmm...
Just throw us a bone every once in a while. Open a show with "All Those Yesterdays" and instead of "YL" close it with an encore of "Sometimes" segueing into "Wishlist" and I guarantee you a show that will stand out for years to come for being a black sheep show. A welcome Thanksgiving.
I know playing the hits and show standards are what brings most crowds to go see the band; and multi-night venue stints lead to more eclectic setlists, but when I look to buy a good concert I want a few rarities, covers or forgotten gems to pop up and I am sucker for the those really unusual setlists. I don't see it as a band bored with the usual staples of that year's tour; they're out there to promote an album, not to satiate folks who'd like to hear most of the songs at least a couple times each year (I point to the thread listing the songs not yet played this year, and the hay'dozen songs I'd like to hear from that list).
The shows should rock and slowly burn into the mind of the listener, but above all the audience should be dropping their jaws and doing a double take when something comes out of the blue and just shocks 'em. Those are golden moments.
I look at a setlist, and see "Release" or "Go" as the opener, "Last Exit"/"Animal"/"Save You" as the second song, "Corduroy" always coming in somewhere in the first six songs of the set, "Given to Fly" usually coming soon after that as the eighth song, "Even Flow" extended out a couple of tracks later, preceding or following "Do the Evolution", "Blood"/"Black"/"Whipping"/"Insignificance"/"Life Wasted" before the end of the set with "Rearviewmirror"/"Porch" or "Alive" as the closer. Then a number of infrequent but cherished songs will be tossed in ("Dissident", "Gone", "In Hiding", "Crazy Mary" etc.) to distinguish one show from another...
A couple encores, and your typically closers "RitFW"/"Fuckin' Up" or "Indifference" will close the last encore before "Yellow Ledbetter" is played if it is played. A year and a half ago I was entertaining this notion that the band only played "YL" if they were pleased with the crowd, or the venue or enjoyed the city. If you didn't fit the criteria, T.S. fans. It's become the blown-kiss seal-of-approval 'Goodnight Mayberry!'. I could take it or leave it (well, that was until the Gorge I show this year when it was merged with Little wing, but I swear I'm not crazy, Gorge II is still the superior performance of the two).
I look at these typically interchangeable shows, lately Europe, and know if I saw the above format show of the typical songs you expect at any PJ show, I wouldn't be too bothered in purchasing it, even if it turned out the show was a tour-de-force. I'm looking out for the atypical shows. With a catalogue of closing in on 200 original compositions, it's forgivable to forget a few notes or a few lines of a song. The beauty about a band performing is that anything can happen. I don't want to complain, this band tours hard, jams hard and often for 2-3 hours an evening, and I know there are a lot of factors that go into compiling a setlist, choosing which songs to pull off and which to hold back, which requests to do that evening, et cetera... but I've just been studying the evolution of the PJ concerts and I wonder if any other fans have input on this.
Is there anything you'd like to see more of, less of? What would you change, and what would you want to enforce for all future performances? What songs are you tiring of, and above all, what songs do you miss hearing these days?
And as others were pointing out, I also lament the fact that the band doesn't play "All Those Yesterdays" more often... it's a damned fine song. The acoustic version from Mansfield III in 2003 was masterful, not that I have anything to compare it to; it's the only time the band's played it in a SET in the past eight years. It's 2006, and the song should be opening shows or closing out encores, not being tucked away in soundchecks.
But as for odds, seriously, what are my chances of hearing "Sometimes" before the year is out? 1/80? It seems they're more apt to play the song when they re-visit certain cities (2x times in Dallas, 2x in Sydney, 3x in London, 2x in Quebec and 5x in North Carolina-- what's up with NC and that song?). I've always wondered why certain songs in the PJ catalogue are repeatedly played in certain locations and not others.
I'm still holding out hope they'll play the rest of the song before New Year's Eve this year, especially since Australia's next and of any region in the world outside of North Carolina, it'd be the place to see it emerge again (7 times in OZ/NZ). Maybe Perth or Adelaide will be my save my ass this year. I figure they'll open with "Oceans" in a couple of shows or possibly try "Big Wave". Hmm...
Just throw us a bone every once in a while. Open a show with "All Those Yesterdays" and instead of "YL" close it with an encore of "Sometimes" segueing into "Wishlist" and I guarantee you a show that will stand out for years to come for being a black sheep show. A welcome Thanksgiving.
I know playing the hits and show standards are what brings most crowds to go see the band; and multi-night venue stints lead to more eclectic setlists, but when I look to buy a good concert I want a few rarities, covers or forgotten gems to pop up and I am sucker for the those really unusual setlists. I don't see it as a band bored with the usual staples of that year's tour; they're out there to promote an album, not to satiate folks who'd like to hear most of the songs at least a couple times each year (I point to the thread listing the songs not yet played this year, and the hay'dozen songs I'd like to hear from that list).
The shows should rock and slowly burn into the mind of the listener, but above all the audience should be dropping their jaws and doing a double take when something comes out of the blue and just shocks 'em. Those are golden moments.
I look at a setlist, and see "Release" or "Go" as the opener, "Last Exit"/"Animal"/"Save You" as the second song, "Corduroy" always coming in somewhere in the first six songs of the set, "Given to Fly" usually coming soon after that as the eighth song, "Even Flow" extended out a couple of tracks later, preceding or following "Do the Evolution", "Blood"/"Black"/"Whipping"/"Insignificance"/"Life Wasted" before the end of the set with "Rearviewmirror"/"Porch" or "Alive" as the closer. Then a number of infrequent but cherished songs will be tossed in ("Dissident", "Gone", "In Hiding", "Crazy Mary" etc.) to distinguish one show from another...
A couple encores, and your typically closers "RitFW"/"Fuckin' Up" or "Indifference" will close the last encore before "Yellow Ledbetter" is played if it is played. A year and a half ago I was entertaining this notion that the band only played "YL" if they were pleased with the crowd, or the venue or enjoyed the city. If you didn't fit the criteria, T.S. fans. It's become the blown-kiss seal-of-approval 'Goodnight Mayberry!'. I could take it or leave it (well, that was until the Gorge I show this year when it was merged with Little wing, but I swear I'm not crazy, Gorge II is still the superior performance of the two).
I look at these typically interchangeable shows, lately Europe, and know if I saw the above format show of the typical songs you expect at any PJ show, I wouldn't be too bothered in purchasing it, even if it turned out the show was a tour-de-force. I'm looking out for the atypical shows. With a catalogue of closing in on 200 original compositions, it's forgivable to forget a few notes or a few lines of a song. The beauty about a band performing is that anything can happen. I don't want to complain, this band tours hard, jams hard and often for 2-3 hours an evening, and I know there are a lot of factors that go into compiling a setlist, choosing which songs to pull off and which to hold back, which requests to do that evening, et cetera... but I've just been studying the evolution of the PJ concerts and I wonder if any other fans have input on this.
Is there anything you'd like to see more of, less of? What would you change, and what would you want to enforce for all future performances? What songs are you tiring of, and above all, what songs do you miss hearing these days?
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Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
Hell, I could list songs all night I think they should be mixing it up with...and I will!
More of these would be nice: Wash, Oceans, Alone, Rats, W.M.A., Indifference (still not played all that often), Breath, Nothingman, Tremor Christ, Immortality, Sometimes, Brain of J., Faithfull, No Way, All Those Yesterdays, Light Years, Nothing As It Seems, Soon Forget, Love Boat Captain, All Or None...
Not that I'm picky, I think 2006 is their best touring year since 2000 - I just wish they'd delve into some of their rich back catalogue more often.
EXACTLY!!
but only love can brake your fall
They still drop a gem or two every few nights so we should get some more surprises from Australia -- but yeah, going down the list of songs:
All Those Yesterdays -- 2003-07-11 (WTF!?!?!?!)
Deep -- 2003-07-12
Evacuation -- 2003-07-14
Habit -- 2005-11-28
I Am A Patriot -- 2004-10-05
No Way -- 1998-09-07 (soooo totally due...)
Nothing As it Seems -- 2005-09-24
Pilate -- 2000-10-25
Soldier Of Love -- 2003-07-03
Sonic Reducer -- 2005-10-03
Few more Binaural and Riot Act tunes they didn't play this year -- but hey, they really did cover quite a bit o stuff in '06! With a dozen or more shows still to go!
No Way is totally due!
Wow, thanks folks. I was kinda worried I'd get lambasted over this topic, but the last few lines there are exactly the point I'm trying to drive home: this is 2006, and Pearl Jam has NEVER in the history of their career sounded better as an outfit: the musical showmanship has evolved immensely over the past decade... that's not to say there weren't legendary shows before, but I've been listening: PJ'06 sounds better than they PJ circa '03-'04, and those trumped the Binaural tour (which suffered some of the worst near-identical sets of any shows prior to the release of 'Vs.' when the band just didn't have many songs in their catalogue and had to work with what they had).
Now they've outlived their peers and they've got a boatload of songs. Since they're sounding better than they ever have in their history of a band, it's of utmost importance to dust off some of these nuggets and get them back into rotation. They are sorely missed.
I agree as well the band covered a lot of ground this year: they did premiere a couple of songs off 'Lost Dogs' on this, the VFC and the Canada '05 tour and they're excellent; "Undone", "Fatal", "Education", and full versions of "Black, Red, Yellow" with infrequent visits from "Down", "Sad [Letter to the Dead]", and "Don't Gimme No Lip" (as for the latter, why don't they attempt more of the other members' contributions? It seems every time they pull out a 'Lost Dog', it's a Vedder song).
There are some songs I don't have a lot of heart for and don't miss so much; I can sort of understand why the band stopped playing "Who You Are" (and it was a single, for Ralph's sake!) in 1998; they apparently fell out of love with the song (when requested at a show a few years ago, Eddie half-heartedly claimed everyone in the band had "forgotten how to play that one"). I don't have much love for "Deep" from 'Ten', but does that mean I never want to hear either of these two songs again? Of course not. When they revamped "Garden", they did wonders with it. I think they could pull it off again with "Deep V.2"... and like I've been trying to say, the band's sounding better these days than they ever did. This is why we miss these songs so much, why they need to be played sooner than later, and while many of us are hoping the next gig is the... leap home?
Would like to hear:
"Sometimes" (Last heard in its entirety in 2005)
"All Those Yesterdays (Last heard in 2003)
"Help Help" (Last heard 2003)
"Last Soldier" (Last heard 2001)
"Who You Are" (Last heard 1998) [Can take or leave this one]
"Push Me, Pull Me" (Last heard 1998)
"No Way" (Last heard 1998)
"Out of My Mind" (Last heard 1994)
"Brother"/"Girl"/"Angel" (Officially abandoned songs?)
Songs in need of TLC:
"Undone" (as catchy as "Down")
"Dead Man" (mostly played in Pre-Sets)
"Oceans" (always a welcome surprise)
"Satan's Bed" (you offer us "Lukin" acoustic, try this scorcher)
"Black Red Yellow"
"Smile" (seriously, it can't be played often enough)
"All or None"
"Nothingman"
"Breath" (thought we'd lost this one, didn't we?)
"Cropduster"/"Last Soldier" (going the way of "No Way"?)
"Beginning to See the Light"
"Chloe Dancer"
"Blue, Red & Grey"
"Army Reserve" (needs to be preserved for the future)
Songs the could be given less attention:
"Insignificance" (my least favorite PJ single)
"Save You"
"Given to Fly"
"Even Flow"
"Dissident"
"Corduroy"
"Severed Hand" (2nd most active song off new LP; already played as much as "Tremor Christ" and "No Way" combined)
"Breakerfall" (don't see the need to play "Breakerfall" and "Save You" at the same show)
"Once"
"Do the Evolution"
"Last Exit"
"I Am Mine" (Solid single, but seems in hindsight like "Who You Are, Part II: the Fall of Western Democracy")
I mean...as any other kind of show...you MUST have a little organisation in the setlist, you can´t run through a whole continent playing four or five days a week changing the setlist order again and again and introducing never before played songs every night...just think of all the things that are involved...the tour schedules...all the technicians involved behind every instrumente that is played onstage...the rehearsals that should be done to chnage the setlists day by day....where to do them?..in a half hour soundcheck? in the plane?...in the hotel room 2 am in the morning after the last gig? (from where they, of course, didn´t get tired, because they dont get tired
and BTW.....I didn´t see the only never ever played live "real" pearl jam song in the complain lists above.....: HOLD ON.....that´s the gem that should be played for the first fuckin time some day
I tried to touch base on this, in my long-winded posts. I understand why certain songs are often played in conjunction with each other; there's a good flow between them i.e. "Lukin/Not For You/[tag]", and then there's the fact that not all the songs are written in the same tuning, requiring a switch of equipment. And then there's your singer... it takes a lot of effort to pull off the notes with the shifts and momentum changes from song to song and try to recall from rote all the lyrics to something you've written a dozen years ago before fucking up and forgetting an entire bridge to one of the songs from the latest album a few minutes later. The band makes mistakes, they're fallible because they're mortal men, and fans forgive them. I understand (I feel like I'm repeating this) that there's a lot that goes into compiling a setlist.
A few weeks ago when someone accused a certain European show being a 'B Setlist', I knew they were inferring the quality of the show. But I entertained a sinister notion that maybe there were 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' setlist templates that the band rotates through on tour.
[A] Setlist: primary focus on greatest hits.
Setlist: primary focus on a lot of material from latest album.
[C] Setlist: primary focus on 'Ten' songs and trilogies.
[D] Setlist: primary focus on 'No Code' and extended jams
This is preposterous, right? Of course it is. When you have a band that's performed five hundred times in public, it's easy to draw parallels like these without looking too hard.
I considered it when I went over it in my lists, but didn't feel compelled to add it. If you want my honest opinion, I think that song is still a work-in-progress, the song's origins are clouded in mystery, and they were still adding touches to it before they put on 'Lost Dogs'. There's another Seattle band I won't mention here now that went through somewhat similar issues with a song of theirs. They really liked the song, recorded it at almost every session from its conception, but never quite gave it the proper send-off they wanted.
It's sort of sad, I've never heard them play the full version of "Hold On" live. It isn't really a 'Lost Dog'; it's a complete Dark Horse. I listen to the Gossman Demos tracks thinking that maybe one of those songs became the basis for "Hold On" (but instead I just always come to the same conclusion that "Folk D" is an early take of "Red Mosquito").
There is what sounds to be an interesting early attempt of "Hold On" in the April 11th, 1994 show in Boston. You can either count this as an attempt at the song (albeit with different lyrics, and no, I don't mean the Tom Waits "Hold On" that was covered during the 'Binaural' tour, there is an Improv from 4-11-94 that sounds like a barebones version of what we hear on 'Lost Dogs'). Listen to that show and tell me if what you think. Work in progess?
This is a great post and I basically agree with all of the points made ... I think my complaints with the setlists are as follows (not to be taken as harsh criticism. I still think PJ does a better job with setlists than almost any other rock band): 1) they have stopped playing some of their newer songs (Riot Act material, and some Binaural) ... Some people think these songs suck and are OK with this. I don't agree. If the songs truly suck, the band shouldn't have released them. I enjoyed a lot of these in 2003 and I don't think they should be dropped completely. 2) I find these soundchecks to be such a huge tease, especially ATY appearing quite a bit. Why not give it a try? What's the worst that can happen if it goes south? A bunch of people on here get mad? Come on ... Challenge yourselves a bit more. 3) I agree with the person who made the point about Lost Dogs ... Why can't more of these songs be tested out? Maybe Jeff doesn't really want to sing Sweet Lew. OK, I can see that ... But why not Other Side? Why not give Hold On a whirl? The band has absolutely nailed a few of the older songs recently ... I think they can do Hold On justice.
on the other hand, it is true that the hold on page in the lost dogs booklet has ,by far, the less satisfactory explanation about the origin and/or the meaning of the song...there you have an eddie´s quote saying something like,,"if you love somebody, set him free, if somebody loves you, dont fuck up"...and that is all what we know about the song...a quotation that could have been along to any other pj song....so this is a really misterious one
Okay, I see what you're saying. The reason I cited "Hold On" as a work-in-progress is that there's a note about it on wikipedia's stub on 'Lost Dogs':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Dogs_%28album%29
It says in the link above that the book incorrectly lists it as 'Vs.' outtake, when it's actually from the 'Ten' sessions, and that the band actually added vocals in 2003 (I guess it's taken the opposite path of "Brother", which lost its vocals and became an instrumental, and "Hold On" may have started out as an instrumental that got vocals more than a decade after it was originally laid to track).
Now, wikipedia hasn't always had a proven track record, it is user-maintained and articles are vandalised all the time, but at the same time it is a useful wealth of knowledge, and we already do know that certain songs from 'Lost Dogs' were re-mixed and edited before being put on the album (perhaps to give the album more of a solid flow; a 'Ten' era track would stand out against 'Riot Act' or 'Binaural' songs, but 'Ten' is the only album with that unusually dense mix).
There's something strangely poetic (and for some reason, familiar) about the dark lyrics to "Hold On", and even if it was in reality completed with vox in 2003, that doesn't make it any less of a song; it's a stone-cold nugget of rock and people seem to really like it. I'd be glad to hear them try and pull it off at a concert. There's a half dozen songs off 'Lost Dogs' that would be welcome additions to live shows.
It's ironic that someone with insider production information seems to have added notes to the wikipedia page about 'Lost Dogs' tracks and included "4/20/2002" but failed to mention anything about "I'm Still Here" whatsoever... what gives?
Can someone with wiki access add the track info for "I'm Still Here", or is it to be kept a secret?
Interesting. I never heard that about the Hold On vocals. Its strange because whenever I listened to this song, I always thought "now this really sounds like Vs. (or maybe Ten)". But now that I've read that the vocals may have been done later, I'm still sure that the music sounds very early, but I can't place what era I think the vocals are from. Definitely not Vitalogy-Yield, but maybe Binaural or Riot Act. Curiouser and curiouser.
Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl
I love you forever and forever
Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08